Paul Cooper (2)

I guess it was a visit to the fabulous garden of Shugakuin (an Imperial Villa) in Kyoto that alerted me to the possibilities of using borrowed scenery ...and probably other techniques for extending gardens. This book promised to open my eyes to a whole host of these techniques....including borrowed scenery. There is a really nice introduction which kind of covers the field ...including some history of gardens and gardening philosophy and many lovely photos. The "Borrowed Landscape" chapter focuses on the concepts that I had experienced in Kyoto ....one major idea here is the idea of the "ha ha"...strange wording but essentially a wall which is hidden from view but gives the illusion of being contiguous with the fields beyond. The wall allows livestock to graze the fields beyond but not to climb into the garden area proper. It is a widely used technique in British gardens. Apparently used by Capability Brown. (What a great name). Another neat idea is a frame within the home that "frames" the scenery.
There is a chapter on deception where false perspective, or mirrors, or distractions ...such as the white trunks of silver birch trees, or concealment...of garden borders etc., are used to deceive the eye and senses. There is a chapter called "Dissolving the edge" which seems fairly self explanatory ...but to my mind is very similar to using borrowed scenery. Anyway, the basic idea is to use plantings ....most of the examples seem to be with grasses ......that just blend the edge of the garden proper with the surrounding land.
And the "Garden Trouvé"....seems a bit of a cheat. It's basically taking the natural surroundings and, maybe putting a walkway through it....but really doing nothing else. So as long as you pick a great site then you don't need to do much else. (Again...this seems to be a slight variation on the borrowed scenery).
The chapter called "Mimicry"....describes how some gardens have been planted to mimic their surroundings......(Seems to be similar to dissolving the edge....but some nice examples are given...plus a few that I find rather unattractive). There is also a chapter on the garden as an event ... which in some cases is like an installation or in others the garden has beacon a sculptural object .....though it's not clear to me that we haven't strayed rather a long way from gardens without boundaries.
I'm not sure how this book could have been written but the text mostly just describes the photographs. And in many cases, I think the photograph doesn't really need the text. As mentioned above, the introduction in many ways is the best chapter in the book. There are some lovely photos...and many that are just ok. not great. Overall a nice book to while away a few hours and maybe dream of creating a great garden.… (mais)